Raymond Briggs, illustrator of the traditional youngsters’s Christmas e-book The Snowman, has died aged 88.

orn in London in 1934, Briggs studied artwork earlier than happening to publish a spread of youngsters’s books, however he’s greatest identified for The Snowman, a crayon-illustrated wordless image e-book.

First revealed in 1978, it tells the story of a boy whose snowman involves life to play through the evening after which takes him on a flight by snowy British landscapes.

An animated tv adaption first aired on St Stephen’s Day 1982 and has since grow to be a staple of British broadcasters’ Christmas scheduling, bringing the story to new generations of youngsters. It was nominated for an Oscar in 1983 and gained a British academy tv award in the identical 12 months.